


We Have Always Been Here

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Poems [2]
Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale), Norse Religion & Lore, Original Work
Genre: Agoraphobia, Disability, Disability History, Disabled Author, Epic Poetry, Gen, Historical, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Marginalized People, People of Color, Physical Disability, Poetry, Queer Gen, Queer History, Queer Themes, Queer author, Stonewall, Transgender Author, Transgender themes, Yule, Yule 2018, mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 20:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17189954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: A poem that started with Ivar the Boneless and went forward. Intended to be a bit of a historical reference for people of any age who are looking for this type of history.





	We Have Always Been Here

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [On Being a Transformer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14549517) by [roguefaerie (samidha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie). 
  * Inspired by [No More Prisons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13786032) by [roguefaerie (samidha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie). 



> This was a Yule present for someone young, and is intended to get wheels turning for people of any age who want to pull up some Wikipedia or do further reading. I'm not a history teacher or anything, but I know my LGBT and disability history fairly well, and if anyone is looking for that/general references to the history of humanity at the margins this poem is for them. Not everyone included is of the same identities but I tried to cover a lot of bases.

In the annals of history  
there are so many flickering lights  
saying i’ve been here  
and here  
and here 

When closed away,  
we do not disappear

There are always ways  
to make a presence loud

From Ivar the Boneless,  
who fought valiantly for his people  
from a chair like a chariot  
and made himself so fearsome  
he went down in history  
no matter who didn’t want  
to be terrified of a disabled man

Though a mind may twist,  
they are hard to break  
and erasing a person  
takes work,  
dedication,  
intention

There is the man  
named Petrus Gonsalvus  
who became Beast  
in a fairytale  
but though sold as entertainment  
and a joke,  
he married well and had children,  
a small mercy  
in a situation designed to break him  
and erase him.

We have always been here

in history books  
(that burn)  
and photographs  
all over the world  
and across all cultures

Whether we may be locked away  
and kept  
out of sight  
out of mind

We have always been here

and forever  
we will

Whether we  
see ourselves  
in the words  
Of Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson  
Elizabeth Bishop  
Mary Oliver

Oscar Wilde  
Virginia Woolf  
Or Alan Ginsburg

Laura Jane Grace  
Or James Baldwin

Or if we want to  
Go to the stars  
Like Sally Ride,  
Mae Jemison

Or Octavia Butler,  
who saw  
so much coming full circle.

If we don’t always have  
the names of the people  
that have carried the torch  
before we did  
we know  
Erasure is a serious drug  
for the people who believe  
we are brand new here

When we, like anyone else  
Are as old as stardust  
As old as the gods,  
Loki and Odin, or Tyr with one arm.

Yet it’s our duty  
to remember that erasure is systemic  
and deliberate  
whether we are disabled, gay,  
queer, trans, or mad,  
or any combination of these things

It is our duty also  
to remember the indiginous,  
of course as many of the firsts,  
the Two-Spirit, like We’wha 

And that today  
there are people  
who were locked away by eugenics  
and disabled people  
still expected never to leave the house,  
be seen outside

There are agoraphobic trans women  
and disabled nonbinary people  
There are trans and gay men  
who couldn’t live  
as themselves

Remember Alan Turing  
Who saved the world  
From Nazis

And remember Katherine Johnson, who coded rockets  
With math as good as any computer  
Then or now.

Remember Stonewall, a riot begun with a brick  
And all of the people  
Who were actually there:  
Marsha Johnson, Miss Major, and Sylvia Rivera.

Remember hot summer nights and a refusal  
To bow to policing  
Of LGBT bodies, of people of color.

(This too is a part of a duty we have  
Moving forward in life.)

Remember what came after,  
when many lights were dimmed and put out  
Lost in grief.

Remember who has been written in fiction  
and in poetry  
and love letters  
and of course the history books.

Remember who has always been here  
and what is owed to them  
for what they have given  
and also what they lost  
or found  
in the ways  
that they were allowed to exist  
in the world.

History is dotted with millions of lights  
of the people who held up humanity  
to its very best

May the gods bless the artists  
and keep them safe

And may they let it be known  
science is given and understood  
as the fabric of our reality  
is learned by humans.

We are everywhere  
And we have always been here


End file.
